The ties that bond
by bookwrm
Summary: When miss hardbroom's niece comes to cackles academy it's more than their family tree that connects the two.....
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Err sort of connects to the HB life story I wrote earlier. It's always fun to write a story about Miss Hardbroom to see how she would act in different situations.

The class was on another one of Miss Drill's endurance hikes when they saw two people fly over the woods towards Cackle's academy. "I wonder who could be visiting us," questioned Mildred. "Maybe its Grand Wizard Helibore or something," Maud said, "Maybe we will be under inspection again." "Oh great, another reason for Miss Hardbroom to give me detention!" The girls finished their hike and by the time they reached the school, they were so exhausted they completely forgot about the unknown visitor.

Later that day, they were reminded. "Girls, I would like to introduce a new student; Hope Vanishing," cried Miss Bat, "Now she will only be with us for this year, but let's try and make her feel welcome." The class murmured a hello and Miss Bat gestured to a seat next to Mildred. Miss Bat began to drone on about Tibet or Siberia or, well, something that had nothing to do with the chant they were learning and Mildred introduced herself to the new girl. "It's not often that we get someone new here. But, why are you only here for a year?"

"Well, my parents are both traveling to Africa at the moment to research the famous bewitched tombs. My mother is an artist and my father is an archeologist, so when my father got a grant to study in Africa they knew they couldn't pass up the opportunity. I've been home schooled so my parents decided to send me away to school for the year."

"Oh." Mildred sat in amazement; she had never met anyone that had been home schooled or whose parents went to Africa. She began to ask her all about her parents' travels and before she knew it, the bell had rung.

Hope was an interesting girl. Perhaps it was the home schooling, but she was different from everyone else. She was spunky and energetic. She wasted no time in getting to know everyone, even Ethel who normally didn't like to "get to know" anyone new. However, despite hershoulder length tangledbrowncurls and her torn stockings, she sat perfectly straight and knew all of the answers; she raised her hand more than Ethel (which of course made Ethel dislike her straight away). At dinner she made the whole table laugh with her jokes. Mildred and Maud were immediately drawn to her and the three became fast friends.

"Psst, Mildred," Hope whispered through Mildred's door at night, "Are you asleep?"

"Hope go back to your room, we aren't supposed to be up this late." Hope opened the door and jump onto Mildred's bed. "Good, you're awake. Wanna play cards or something?" Mildred looked at her, was she nuts? "No, we aren't allowed to do that stuff here, in fact you better get out right now before…"

"Before what Mildred Hubble?" boomed an all to familiar voice. "Before I catch you up after lights out."

"Aunt Constance," Hope exclaimed, "I only wanted to ask Mildred some things about Cackle's academy, that's all. We weren't doing anything wrong." Mildred stared at HB in amazement. She had never thought her teachers had a life or a family outside of school. She watched her wince as the young girl called her "aunt."

"Look, Mildred, back to bed and lights out immediately; don't let me catch you again. Hope, follow me." Miss Hardbroom led Hope back to her room and closed the door. "The only reason you are here is because your mother needed a place to put you for the year. I didn't volunteer for this and it should be made clear that you are my student, nothing more. I suggest you start behaving like one." "But you're my aunt to," Hope said. "Yes, that is unfortunately true, but we are at one of the finest academies in the world and if you are to stay here you must follow the rules. I will give you no special treatment." "Okay I understand, but Aunt Constance?" "And that's another thing, please address me as Miss Hardbroom." "Miss Hardbroom then. Will you sing me a bedtime song, mother always does."

Hb looked positively sick. "No, this is a boarding school, not a nursery. Please just go to sleep and shut out the lights." She turned and began to leave the room. "Goodnight Aunt Constance." She sighed and finally said goodnight.

"Get this Maud, Hb is her Aunt!" "No way," gasped Maud, "Wow I guess she sort of looks like Hb but I wouldn't have guessed they were related. I mean Hope is so, nice." "Hey, we can't tell anybody. Ethel would have a field day with this news. Plus Hb didn't look to thrilled that I knew." "Good idea." "What's a good idea?" said Hope coming up behind them. "Well," Mildred paused, "Reminding you to stay away from Ethel is a good idea. Believe us, she isn't a very nice person." "Yeah I sort of gathered that from the mean glances she kept sending my way." The girls made their way into the great hall for breakfast. "Yuck," Hope said, "this is definitely what I would have expected of boarding school breakfasts!" As the girls talked they saw Miss Hardbroom walk right on by as if she didn't see them. Mildred realized she was going to great lengths to make sure no one knew about her relation to the student. She watched Hope stare after her with a confused look on her face. "Hey," said Mildred trying to distract her new friend, "We should get going, we don't want to be late for class."

Mildred couldn't help noticing that Miss Hardbroom treated Hope exactly like, well exactly like Mildred. No special treatment whatsoever. Since the whole class had been evenly partnered off, Hope got to pick her partners. Of course she picked Maud and Mildred. Today they had to make a calming potion. Miss Hardbroom was going through the different properties of the calming potion before she let them at the cauldrons. "Excuse me Miss Hardbroom," said Hope, "I , I have a question." Miss Hardbroom looked shocked at being addressed. "Yes Miss Vanishing." "Well I was wondering if, used in this setting, the snake skin would have the negative effects it does in other potions such as a yellowing in skin tone?" Miss Hardbroom paused for a minute, taking this in, and said, "Normally that would be the case but it has been found that the fish scales will compensate for these effects while still allowing the snake skin to have its calming effect." Miss Hardbroom raised her eyebrows at the class, prompting them to write that tidbit of information down and then continued to explain the ingredients of the potion.

When it came time to actually make the potion Mildred was in a panic. "What was she saying about the frog water." "No Mildred," Hope explained, "that was bog water. Turn on the Bunsen burner and I'll get us what we need." Mildred and Maud worked on the flame while Hope went to the back of the classroom to gather the ingredients. "Well," said Ethel, "It seems that you are quite the know it all. I bet you were the top student at your other school. Oh wait you were, because you were the only student." "Is that supposed to hurt Ethel?" "No, I just wanted to remind you that you are in a bigger pond now. You may know some basic properties but that doesn't give you the right to show off in class." "I wasn't showing off," Hope raised her voice, "I just wanted to ask a question. That's what students do when they don't know something; ask a question." She grabbed several bottles and started to walk away. She heard Ethel muttering something under her breath and turned her head to say something and tripped on a chair leg, spilling the contents of the bottles to the floor.

"Miss Vanishing! Perhaps you aren't aware of this, but the potion ingredients go in the cauldron, not on the floor. Class, continue your work, Hope you will clean up this mess immediately." "But Miss Hardbroom, Ethel tripped me!" Miss Hardbroom's eyebrows rose at least an inch and she sputtered, "Ethel is in the back of the room gathering her ingredients carefully. You tripped here in the middle of the room, several feet away from Ethel's leg. For that bit of cheekiness I suggest you finish cleaning this up and go straight to Miss Cackle's office." "But…" "Miss Vanishing don't force me to add to your punishment." Hope stared at her aunt, a look of anger in her eyes, and went about cleaning up the spilled power. Mildred went to the back of the room to get new supplies and gave her friend a reassuring smile as she passed.

Author's Note: yeah this begginning chapter is a little dull and cliche(accent over the e, sorry) but here's the deal this story has alot of parts to it and so iended updoing this as an intro. Never fear, in a few chapters it will pick up i promise and it won't be the same old cackles academy schtuff either. I'll write when i can but i have a feeling i will be updating soon because i know exactly how i want it to end; i just have to make it there.


	2. Flying High

The walk to Miss Cackle's office was long. She had never been punished for something she hadn't done. Sure she was outspoken but all of the times she had gotten into trouble, at least she knew she had deserved it. She wondered why her aunt was so mean. After all, she had been so excited to finally meet her aunt, who her mother told her she strongly resembled. She assumed her aunt Constance would be excited to meet her. She stood in front of Amelia Cackle's office for a moment and took a deep cleansing breath before she knocked. "Come in," Miss Cackle crooned. "Ah, Hope, what's the reason for your visit? Have to bring me a message or something?" "No Miss Cackle, my aunt sent me for spilling potion ingredients. Look, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to do it." "Oh my dear, don't worry about it. Why if I gave detention to every girls Miss Hardbroom sent in here, why there would be no students left to teach!" "Thank you Miss Cackle," Hope sighed. "Is there anything else Hope." "Well, I'm a bit troubled by my aunt, you see I thought that she would be different, you know less…um.." "Strict," piped in Miss Cackle. "Yes, I don't expect any special attention or anything, that would be unfair, but I just want her to accept me. I feel that she is disappointed with me being here." "Oh. I doubt that your presence here is a disappointment. It's just that Miss Hardbroom doesn't like to show her feelings easily, or err, at all. Don't worry, that's just the way she is." "Okay, thank you Miss Cackle." Hope left the office feeling a lot better and forgot about her potions mishap as she went to broom flying with Miss Hardbroom.

"Alright class, assume the starting positions we went through last week and prepare to mount." "Uh Mildred, what's the starting position," Hope asked. "Well, you hold the broom at your side firmly with two hands, place your heels together and sort of turn yourself….yes that's it. And then you wait for Miss Hardbroom to tell you to sit down." Hope prepared her broomstick. She was scared out of her mind. As a child she had loved to fly but unfortunately she had gotten into a bit of a scrape when she was younger and so she hadn't been so keen to fly. In fact, it was her worst subject, besides P.E. of course. "Now girls, sit sideways on your broomsticks, that's right hover now. After you feel your broomsticks feeling light like this kick off from the ground lightly." She sat majestically on her broom like a queen bee watching her workers. The girls kicked off and surprisingly all of them made it into the air. Ethel flew circles around the courtyard while Mildred, Maud, and Hope flew close to the walls. "Whoa! I can never get my broom to do exactly what I want it to do." "Wow," Mildred said, "I thought you would be as good as Ethel because of how smart you are in class." "Well, I guess that I'm good at things you can learn by book, flying is hard to me because you can get seriously hurt falling off of this thing!" She wobbled a little but after a few minutes had better control of her broom and were flying a bit higher. She turned and watched her aunt flying around the yard giving pointers to different girls. She looked wonderful, she sat as straight as a stick and made it look like the broom was doing all of the work.

"Now girls," Miss Hardbroom said from midair, "It's time to try your first landing. This isn't a difficult maneuver, but for the first time it can be a little tricky. Watch me please. First you will angle your broom slightly and start flying towards the ground. Once your feet brush the ground, you will gently pull the tip of the broom up, allowing the tail to slow you down." They watched HB execute a perfect landing and then they all were supposed to try. Ethel went first and achieved a perfect landing. Then the other girls went. Ruby and Jadu did almost as well as Ethel and even Drucilla managed a non shaky landing. Maud landed with a wobble and Mildred and Hope managed to not pull up at the right moment so an awful lot of dust flew up. Coughing a bit Miss Hardbroom said, "Well that really was fine, a few of you still need some practice, but generally the group has it. I will be observing your landing skills next week, so please practice." The group began to move inside and Hope went up to her aunt. "Aun...err Miss Hardbroom? I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with my landing. You know I really.." "No," Miss Hardbroom said icily, "That will not be appropriate. However, Ethel seems to have gotten it down and I'm sure she would love to help you." Hope stared at her aunt's retreating back in amazement. How could anyone be so cruel?

Luckily for the girls, it was a weekend and even though they had tons of homework (especially Mildred who had 500 hundred lines of "I will not leave my spell books on the stairs" due on Monday) the girls were excited for some time off. On Saturday afternoon they had gotten through a few essays and decided to listen to some music on the roof. It was Mildred's idea. They turned on Mildred's cd player and put on their sunglasses. "It really is a wonderful day outside." "Yeah Maud," said Hope, "Especially because we don't have to do homework right now!" "Yeah, all we ever do is homework! In fact, except for our Halloween celebration, we never do anything really fun around here!" "Yeah," piped in Mildred, who was swaying her feet to the music. "You know," Hope began, "Tonight is the full eclipse of jupiter. Yeah, it only happens every 100 years, I read about it in my new astronomy book. According to my book it is supposed to be the most fantastic display of colors since the northern lights." "Cool," said Maud, "We should check it out before bed tonight." "Well, um, that's the fun part. It only peaks from 1 am to 1:10 am." "What," Mildred sat up, "That is breaking a major rule! We are not supposed to be out of bed after 10 and we can't leave school grounds." "Well, we could make sure no one catches us and as for the leaving school grounds part, we really won't be leaving it. If we stand just over there we should be facing the eastern sky and so it we keep on foot in the yard and one foot sort of out the gate we will still be on school grounds." Maud looked wary, "I don't know…" "Come on you guys say you never do anything fun…let's live alittle!" "Okay said Maud finally giving in, "The only problem is getting around Hb, I swear she knows everything." "Well, we will just have to be extra careful and bewitch our feet to be soundless. I learned that spell a few years ago." The girls talked excitedly about their plan. So excitedly, they didn't notice Ethel sneaking back into the school.

Hope had spent the rest of the day teaching Mildred and Maud that spell. The plan was for them to meet in the hallway at exactly 12:55 am. That way they could get down to the yard, see the lights, and be back in bed in the shortest time frame possible. Hope sat in her bed trembling with excitement. She had wanted to see these lights and sneaking out made her excited. At home she used to sneak out to the roof every night to watch the stars until she realized her parents really didn't care, and then it became less exciting. With a sigh she thought of her parents. She missed them; she loved reading with her father and being with her mother. Her mother was great, she always thought of the best games and Hope loved to watch her paint. Her mother and aunt were two completely different people. Her mother had told her that her aunt Constance had been very quiet as a child and had spent a lot of time in her room studying. She said that she wasn't very well liked in school and that she was isolated from their family. Hope wondered about her aunt, maybe she was trying to cover up some sort of hurt. Maybe she was a lot like her. She certainly felt like an outcast sometimes. She was constantly alone, her parents were always busy with work. She wondered if her aunt Constance had been left alone a lot. Well, that didn't matter because she was never going to talk to Miss Hardbroom, HB just wouldn't allow it. She looked at the clock; 12:53. She started to get ready and prepared to perform the spell. She said the magic incantation and with ticklish feet, stepped out into the hallway.

Author's note: i know wow it just keeps being boring but just wait for it, wait for it...


	3. The rings of Jupiter

Mildred and Maud were waiting in the hall when Hope emerged from her darkened room. With a quick wave of her wand and some hushed muttering, Mildred and Maud jumped up and down without making a noise. "Extreme!" they whispered. Hope motioned for them to be quiet and follow her. Miss HArdbroom must have been checking the kitchen because they didn't run into her at all. A rush of relief hit the girls as they stepped out into the cool crisp night. Hope savored the smoky smell of the air for a minute before following Mildred and Maud to the end of the yard. Just like they had agreed they kept one foot in the yard while peeking outside the gate.

In the distance a faint light was starting to twist itself around the clouds in the east. The girls watched as the light exploded into colors they had never seen in a spectacular show.

"Oh!" Maud cried out. "Yeah Maud I know the colors are fascinating," said Hope who didn't want to be interrupted from this show. "Well I'm sure the colors aren't as fascinating as your excuse for being out here so late at night," a deep voice boomed from behind them. Hope squeezed her eyes tight because she recognized this particular voice. She took her time turning around, eyes wide with fright.

Miss HArdbroom paced like a tiger in a cage while Miss Cackle sleepily grasped a chair for support. "Honestly girls, you know that the rules forbid being out this late," Miss Cackle said with a yawn. "And let's not forget, Miss Cackle, that Mildred is about one detention away from being expelled. I think she should be expelled right now. This is a clear disregard for superiority and….." "I was my fault Miss HArdbroom," Hope exploded, "I really wanted to see this eclipse and I didn't want to go alone because I'm afraid of the dark so I dragged Mildred and Maud out of bed." Miss Cackle look almost relieved at this news, "Well Miss Hardbroom, you certainly can't expect me to expel Mildred after such a small incident as this; but be warned Mildred if you slip up again we will consider expulsion." Miss HArdbroom looked displeased at this news and stared at Amelia with a raised eyebrow. "Well Miss HArdbroom, I'll leave you to sort out their punishments." And with that she quickly headed for bed.

Since Hope was the ringleader of the venture Mildred and Maud had lines while she got a Saturday detention cleaning out the potion storage room. She look shocked at the thought of being trapped in a dirty little room on what promised to be a bright and beautiful Saturday, but she took the punishment because anything was better than being responsible for Mildred being expelled.

When Hope woke up on Saturday the sunlight was making patterns on her blanket. She pulled the soft dark wool over her eyes to shut out the day. Yuck, she hated getting up early. She was most definitely a night owl. She pondered, under her covers, the origin of the word night owl. How did they think of that term? Maybe someone that stayed up late frequently always saw an owl. With all that thinking her head started to stop buzzing and she pulled back the covers and got out of bed.

Somehow she shuffled her way into the dungeon ready for a whole Saturday full of smelly potion ingredients and just about the grouchiest person on the planet. Little did she know that her near future held a situation far worse than writing labels on jars….

Author's Note: yeah you knew a detention with HB couldn't be as simple as it looked could it?


	4. Sticky Situation

Hope wiped dust from her eye as she wrote out another bottle of eye of toad. She would have to remember that the school had dozens of bottles of the stuff so she shouldn't feel bad for using it to make a strong invisibility potion to escape from detentions.Ithad been a week since the girls snuck out of the school but Miss HArdbroom wasn't about to let the incident go. Miss HArdbroom was sitting at a small desk grading papers with many hard pressed scrapings. Basically Hope had to transfer ingredients from broken or dirty bottles into the new clean ones and re-label all of them. It was a tedious job.

The worst part was the hours of silence. It wasn't like Hope actually wanted to talk to her aunt or anything but she hated the uncomfortable silence. She had to say something. "So, uh, Miss Hardbroom how are those papers coming along." She winced at the sound of that sentence; who would ask such a dumb question. "Well as usual no on seems to have grasped the concept of place to place travel, except for Ethel of course." Hope concentrated hard on her bottle until she heard HB mutter, "Although your paper was quite good. Very logical." Hope nodded as she understood this was a great compliment coming from Miss Hardbroom. The two worked in silence for a great deal longer.

Hope wondered about her aunt….what had made her this strict and silent. Her mother had said that Aunt Constance had been caring as a child but was more introverted than most. Perhaps it was the sudden death of Hope's grandmother that caused the change or even the boarding school she was sent away to. Her mother didn't even know. Hope had been so excited to meet her aunt because her mother told her she was brilliant. Always receiving top grades and receiving a best in class award from her finishing school. Hope had heard that Miss HArdbroom's first dissertation on the art of the invisibility potion had been published immediately. But she still couldn't understand why a woman who appeared to have so much was so stony.

She realized, with a start, that she had finished her last bottle. She looked at the floor and sighed at the thought of putting them all back on the shelf and trying to decide the order….oh my. She decided that alphabetical was the safest route. She had gotten up to Hippo's tooth when Miss Hardbroom came over to inspect her work. "Alphabetical! What's all this nonsense! Have you ever stocked potions before? They should be done first by animal, second by plant, third by rock…." She trailed off when she noticed Hope looking at her with half closed eyes. Perhaps in anger, she reached out to bang on the top shelf to waken up her charge (which wasn't much of a reach for her) and instead the pressure of her hand on the shelf loosened the termite infested wood which came apart at one end and smacked down into the next shelf. Before either one of them could do anything powders and gels spilled all over them and Miss Hardbroom grabbed Hope's arm to get her out of the way of the collapsing shelf.

Hope opened her eyes in a haze of multicolored power. There was a heavy pressure on her right arm and she tried to shake it to free herself. Once the dust cleared she saw that Miss Hardbroom was still clasping her hand. "Miss Hardbroom you can let go of me now." Miss Hardbroom pulled her arm away and pulled Hope's arm with it. She grabbed hope's arm with her other hand and tried to pry her hand off of Hope's; no luck. She looked in horror at the floor and picked up a half empty bottle of liquefied frog tongue; possible the strongest bond in the witching world. They both sat there for a moment, stunned.

Suddenly it hit home; Hope was permanently stuck to Miss Hardbroom.

Author's note: yeay here it is………the real starting point of my story! Sorry it's a short one but the next chapter will be long!


	5. The Potion master

Whoops it's been a while but I got back from camp last week so now I'm relaxed and ready to finish this story. The best is yet to come……

Miss Hardbroom immediately sprang into action. She stood up from the dusty floor pulling Hope with her. "Ow!" Hope winced at being pulled up so abruptly. Miss Hardbroom turned around and raised an eyebrow. A sharp menacing arch that made the girl stop rubbing her arm. "Now listen, There might possibly be a potion that will unstick us so we have to go to the potions lab." Hope nodded because it sounded like a good plan to her. She was perfectly willing to let Hb take charge; after all the woman did know her potions. Miss Hardbroom continued, "And let's try to not make our disadvantage so obvious. If I can fix this, no one will have to know." Hope nodded in agreement, it wasn't like it would earn her cool points with Ethel if she found out that Hope had to be attached to Hb all day. "Yeah no problem you can just pretend I am in trouble and you are going to give me another day long detention." Hope looked up with the realization that she had said that sarcastically out loud when she didn't mean to. But instead of looking Peeved Hb got a crazed look on her face; "yes that might just work." So the two started from the basement all the way up to the potion lab.

Of course it would just so happen that Miss Tapioca was coming up the stairs with a big dish of something that looked like a cherry cheesecake. "Well hello Miss Hardbroom, Hope, Whata lovely day outside eh?" Miss Hardbroom nodded curtly but there was nothing she could do because Miss Tapioca was ahead of them on the stairs and moving rather slowly so as not to drop the cheesecake. "Yes I was just taking this up to Miss Cackle for a little tea time snack." "Oh snack…" Hope hadn't had lunch yet and the mention of tea time made her realize how hungry she was. But glancing up at Miss Hardbroom she could see that food was the last thing on the teachers mind. "Well you know Ima sure Miss Cackle wouldn't mind if you joined her." "Err no Miss Tapioca, Hope here still has to finish her detention and I don't think tea time is the right way to go about it." Hope suddenly had a vision of an everlasting detention. She wasn't just going to have to spend a Saturday afternoon with Miss Hardbroom, she might have to spend a day with her and….a night to! She would gladly have given anything to go back into the dungeon to clean bottles just as long as HB wasn't attached to her.

Luckily after Miss Tapioca shuffled down the hall to the staff room, Miss Hardbroom and hope were able to make a clean sweep to the potions room. HB flew immediately to the cupboard behind her desk and started shuffling through large books one handed. She passed down a fat purple book to Hope and said, "Start looking for either an unsticking or diluting solution or possibly a Foster's fix all potion." Hope opened the book. Wow, this was a lot more complex than their potion manuals. Now Hope loved to read more than anything and she had browsed through a few of these advanced spellbooks before but these were just so much more complex than she was used to. She glanced up at Miss Hardbroom who was leafing through them at record speed. Impressed Hope started flipping through the pages to find any potion that might help, even if it was one that could burn an arm off. "Here" Miss Hardbroom muttered loudly, more to herself than anything. Hope waited patiently as her aunt stared at the potion for a while and nodded. "Okay, yes well, the new is good. This potion, when applied to two objects stuck together will dilute the bond. However this doesn't say that it will work on humans but the ingredients seem to be in the first few elements and so I don't believe they will cause us any damage." Hope had to stop and think about her study of the elements last summer; the last 6 were poisonous when consumed and the first few were absolutely harmless and used in most potions (eye of toad, wing of bat, tooth of wolf, ect…) "However", Hb continued "this potion takes about 12 hours to simmer so we should start on it soon." "Yes because the liquefied frog tongue is at its purest state so it will set permanently in 24 hours." Miss Hardbroom stared at her for a second with her eyebrow raised, but in an approving way. "It looks like someone has been reading out of the third year textbook." Hope blanched for a second and then nodded in a humble sort of way. "Yes well at least know we know the facts, I always like to know exactly what is going on. So most of these ingredients can be found in here but we will need to go back down to the dungeon to see if we can find the rest."

So the two made their way back down into the dungeon. Luckily most of the girls were outside playing in the yard or taking a walk in the woods because it was such a lovely day. If it had been raining they would have been swamped with girls. The dungeon was still a mess. Miss Hardbroom looked at the mess for a moment then waved her arm and all of the ingredients flew back into the jars which unbroken and flew back up on the shelves in the correct order. "But but….if you could do that in the first place why did I have to…." "That's why they call it detention." Miss HArdbroom smiled a little. "Besides it was much more effective than giving you lines again because between you and Mildred there is enough written to surround the world a few times!" So the two of them set about collecting the items. Or rather Miss HArdbroom dictated and Hope collected. After gathering the last jar (fish eyes, ewww) the two went up stairs.

They were almost clear when Ethel suddenly walked up the stairs. Hope's heart sunk because the only way that this situation would get worse was if she was teased later by Ethel. "Oh Miss HArdbroom I have been looking for you all day, I have to ask you a question about the assignment you gave on Friday. I believe I thought of another way to do the potion…" Miss Hardbroom's face was priceless. Normally she gave Ethel this smug smile but on this particular day she was feeling particularly crabby and so she waved her off with a glare. "But Miss Hardbroom, Hope's detention should be over by now, it's almost dinner." Miss HArdbroom quickly moved Hope's hand behind her back and started explaining to Ethel that Hope's detention was for the whole day and so she wasn't done yet. Hope wanted to laugh because at that very moment she saw there hands in a different light. It almost looked like they were on a date! She always saw her cousin holding hands with boys and now she realized that Miss Hardbroom was the closet thing to dating hand holding she had gotten. She had to bite her lip to keep a straight face.

The potion mixing was very quick indeed. Mainly because Miss Hardbroom did it all. Hope sat mesmerized by the different ingredients making flashing colors. It was an art, a show but Miss Hardbroom took to it as if she were making a bowl of oatmeal; like it was the most regular thing on earth. Speaking of oatmeal Hope's stomach had started to rumble. Luckily after the potion was done and covered Miss Hardbroom got up and motioned for Hope to follow her. They walked down the hall and headed toward the staffroom. It made sense to Hope because she would rather eat without the stares of her fellow students. HB opened the door and Miss Cackle, Miss Drill, and Miss Bat looked up from their dinners waiting to see why Miss Hardbroom was so late from dinner duty.


	6. Darkness falls

Lady Jolly: Thanks for the reviews! They were really helpful and no worries the story is almost done except for some tweaking. What can I say…I'm picky!

"Well Miss Hardbroom, were the girls especially rowdy to….." Miss Cackle paused mid sentence as she caught sight of a nervous looking hope besides Constance. She sighed and tried to imagine what Hope could have done to make Miss Hardbroom want to punish her. Although that didn't require much she reminded herself. But Miss Cackle was always on edge when Miss Hardbroom marched a student into her office. She would have to calm Hb down so the student wouldn't be expelled. "Err what is the matter Miss Hardbroom?" She questioned quickly. For the first time HB looked uneasy. She hadn't planned on telling the staff what had happened but they couldn't go around like this without someone finding out. "Well headmistress you see there was an accident in the basement. Due to Hope's poor stacking skills a bottle of liquefied frogs' tongues spilled…"

"Hey!" Hope accidentally exclaimed. "It wasn't my fault, it was hers. She knocked over the shelf and…" With a quick look up at her aunt she realized that she had to spend a night with her and well it was like spending a night with a tiger. Best not to get her angry. "Look it doesn't matter whose fault it was but now Miss Hardbroom and I are stuck together." The staff gasped in astonishment. Miss Cackle looked horrified, Miss Drill dropped her hot cup of tea in her lap and was now hoping up and down in pain, while Miss Bat was waving her baton in great agitation. "However", Miss Hardbroom added, "there is a potion that can unstick us so to speak, but it won't be ready till late morning." Miss Cackle looked relieved. "Yet I must make a request that none of the other students find out about this." She glared at Miss Bat who was still oblivious. Miss Cackle nodded very calmly. "Yes that would be the best thing, but since there's nothing we can do till morning how about you two have something to eat."

Eating in the staffroom was better than Hope had imagined. She always had a hunch that the teachers could eat what ever they wanted and sure enough Miss Cackle had a giant cheese soufflé, Miss Drill had the most delicious looking chicken ever, Miss Bat had some sort of funky tofu concoction on her plate, and Miss Hardbroom, well she was the exception. Hope tried to hide her disappointment as Hb ladled up a bowl of green chunky soup. Split pea? Not likely. But it was actually hot and decent. It tasted too nutritious for Hope's liking but it was better than that greasy cold stuff any day. After she was done she waited for Miss Hardbroom to tell her what to do next. It was very unnerving being in the staffroom. She felt as if she was inferior to the whole bunch, like she had mistakenly wandered into some elite club or something. Finally Miss Hardbroom stood up and after whispering a few things in Miss Cackle's ear motioned for Hope to follow her.

At least one good thing had come of their being stuck together for such an extended period of time; Miss Hardbroom didn't pull her like she did when they were first stuck together. She was much more gentle. Looking around at the darkening castle Hope guessed that it was time for bed. Mildred and Maud were probably wondering what happened to her. In fact they were probably in Mildred's room telling stories and sneaking sweets. And it was looking doubtful that HB was going to do any bed checks so they would probably be up half the night. She sighed as she thought of all the time she had wasted today. But then again it was her fault to begin with; she had snuck the girls out after hours. She had disobeyed rules. That was who she was. She did what she wanted. Her aunt didn't. How could they be so similar yet so totally opposite? At least she had finally gotten some time to spend with her aunt but she was no closer to figuring her out. HB hid behind a dark wall of solitude that was pretty hard to break down. But Hope could say this; Miss Hardbroom wasn't as outrageous as Hope thought. In fact everyone had a little HB in them if they chose to be committed and hard working. Although most of those people didn't yell at people for breathing too loud in over their potions (oh Maud).

Hope was so deep in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice where they were going. She suddenly blinked as her eyes were exposed to candlelight. It was a room she had never seen before, it must be HB's room! Slowly she looked around examining every detail. The room was plain. The bed was a little bigger than her own but it had the same plain blanket and pillow. Morgana was sitting on top very neatly, as if HB had arranged her. There was a single candle on the night table and to the left of that there was another door. Hope presumed it was the closet which probably had 10 of the same long black dresses and boots. Her broom leaned against a large bookcase that was crammed with books. She squinted and saw a lot of old moldy looking textbooks, but also some fiction like the Odyssey and Moby Dick. "Ahem," Miss Hardbroom cleared her throat loudly. Hope turned around and saw that while she had been looking at the books HB had conjured up a bed right next to hers. They looked at each other for a moment, not really sure of what the protocol was. HB waved her hand and suddenly she had on long purple pajamas. Hope guessed that she was supposed to sleep in her uniform since there was no way she could do that trick and since taking it off would leave it on the arm connecting her and HB. "Well, it's time for bed seeing as how we have an early start." "An early start Miss? The potion isn't ready until late morning." "Yes, but I still have the morning duties to perform which I would prefer to get done when the students are in bed." Hope nodded meekly; there was no end to her suffering. Miss Hardbroom started to get into her bed and for a few minutes there was a tugging of arms as the two attempted to get situated. It was very uncomfortable sleeping with an arm stretched out across the bed but it felt good to lie down. There was a long silence and then Hope said, "you know I read the Odyssey a few summers ago; it's a classic. I enjoyed it tremendously." Constance was silent for a moment then replied, "Yes well it's one of my favorites. It's a tough bit of reading for a girl your age, but I remember reading it at the same time." "My mom told me you liked to read a lot when you were a kid, like me. In fact my mom says we are a lot alike. I mean I would love to hear about your childhood, my mom never talks about it that much." "I'm sure there's a reason for that. And your mom is wrong; we are nothing alike which is clearly indicated by the fact that you want to stay up talking and I want to go to sleep. Now good night Hope." "Good night…….aunt Constance." In the silence of the night she heard HB sigh.

Long after Miss Hardbroom's breathing turned deep and smooth, Hope lay awake staring at the ceiling, thinking. She was so close to her aunt and yet had never been farther away.


	7. It all came tumbling down

Sorry Guys….. For some reason I wasn't in the computer mood for a while. Then I realized that I had to post the final chapter. So enjoy!

A sudden pressure on her chest caused her eyes to flash open. "Morgana!" She whispered sharply to the large black beauty sitting upright on her. She moved to get out of bed but her arm didn't want to move. It was anchored to some……Oh she had almost forgot. The girl. Well at least today it would be over.

Constance thought about how embarrassed she had been to even reveal to Amelia Cackle that she was attached to this girl. Of course it wasn't her fault. She didn't make those kind of mistakes. Heckity conditioned her well. The girl had been a hindrance, after all Constance was busy enforcing the laws on the weekend. She had things to do. Better things than to look after trouble makers.

But for a second she smiled. It had been nice to spend the day with someone. Without apperating and running around the school giving off demerits. It was nice to not be alone so much. She shook her head. No this was her life. She chose it. She wasn't a companion kind. No one understood her. Except Hope. She was entirely frightened of the girl. She looked into her Eyes and saw her sister but in her habits she saw herself. A more outgoing Constance but still the similarities were striking. She rarely saw her niece; she didn't make time for family.

She couldn't go soft now. It was just like always; you thought you had bonded with people but you always found yourself broken off in the end. People hurt you.

She blinked her eyes hard. It was too early for this kind of thinking. Gently she used her other arm to tap Hope on the shoulder until she woke up.

Breakfast. It had never looked so wonderful. Of course it did at 5 in the morning. It was the only thing that got Hope out of bed. That and Hb standing next to her. If she hadn't been attached to Miss Hardbroom she would have slept till at least 10. "Well it looks like my detention is almost over!" Hope said cheerfully. "Although, I can't lie, it hasn't been the worst detention ever. Cleaning out the dungeon was worse!" Miss Hardbroom smiled herself, "Yes well it has been an interesting experience to say the least." The smile left her eyes and she said rather briskly "Right, I have some things to do as the deputy head mistress before the potion is ready so let's get a move on."

The duties seemed endless. Hope honestly had no idea what Hb did outside of class. There were a lot of responsibilities to being a deputy headmistress. BY the time 7 am had rolled around the two had just finished opening the upstairs windows and checking the halls (for what Hope had no idea) and were finally making there way towards the potion lab. Hope could hardly wait. She knew exactly what she was going to do; go to back to bed! She moved a little quicker and her foot caught a bulge in the carpet on the top of the stairs.

Both of them went flying down the stairs and this wasn't Miss Hardbroom's most graceful flight either. They landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, Hope on top of Miss Hardbroom. "Oh, oh no, Aunt Constance are you alright." Her face lit up in concern. Her aunt didn't seem to be breathing and she didn't know what to do. Suddenly Miss Hardbroom seemed to come to life with a giant gasp. "I think I've had the wind knocked out of me." She tried to stand up but fell back down with a gasp of "my ankle." "Here aunt Constance, let me help you up." "No, I'm fine, we just need to go to the potions room, once we get detached I can take care of this." Something in Hope exploded as she said, "Why is it that you can never except help from anyone? Why do you always want to be alone!" Constance looked at her in surprise then knit her eyebrows together. "Believe me, it's better being alone, people don't really care." "I care." She stopped as HB huffed. "No, I really do care. You are my aunt, my family, even if you don't want to admit it." "You don't even know me." "But I want to get to know you." "You wouldn't want to girl, my past isn't as pretty as yours." "Well I don't care, you're family and I, I do love you." Tears started to come to her eyes and she turned away because she was as every bit as proud as her aunt and she didn't want her to she Hope cry. Something about that touched Constance, it reminded her of herself. Always turning away. From her father, her sister, and now her niece. "Listen, I'm sorry Hope, but it's hard for me to trust people, it's easier for me to stay away." Hope turned around, eyes shining and grabbed her hand. "It is easier, but it's a lot more painful isn't it." Tears started to come to Constance's eyes now and she started to turn away. But hope would let her. Hope wouldn't let her.

The potion did a beautiful job. Separated and no mark. Constance and Hope cleaned up the potions lab in silence but it was a different type of silence than before. They know understood each other a little better.

Hope looked up at her aunt and smiled. The smile was returned. Constance wasn't going to stay away anymore, she couldn't. She couldn't. Hope had asked to spend more time with her and she thought it was a great idea.

The next day in potions their was sort of a scared understanding between the two. Even Mildred noticed the different vibes. "Wow, Hb's not her usual self today." Of course as she turned to say this she knocked into Hope's arm which made her spill the hot invisibility potion in her hand onto ethel's hand. "Miss Hardbroom!" And Hope got a detention, but this time she didn't mind so much.


End file.
